This invention relates to gas cooking ovens and, more particularly, to an improved gas oven having a steam generating means integrally formed in the oven structure and/or a manually operable damper mechanism for controlling the amount of steam circulating in the oven cavity to bake French bread with a desired glossy appearance and hardness.
In gas ovens for the baking of French bread, a hot steam is produced and drawn into the oven cavity where it contacts dough pieces on a baking plate when passing over it. In a typical gas baking oven, a boiler is used as a steam source which is located outside the oven body. Such boiler typically is large and bulky, requiring considerable space for installation, and yet is more expensive than the oven proper. Moreover, the boiler consumes a relatively large amount of fuel such as heavy oil, gas, etc., leading to increased operating costs. A further disadvantage of this prior art arrangement is that the steam temperature tends to drop due to the heat loss from a steam conduit connecting the boiler to the oven, often resulting in a failure to bake French bread with a desired glossy appearance and hardness.
A typical gas baking oven has an exhaust means in the rear of the oven for discharging the used flue gases from the cooking cavity to the surrounding atmosphere. Such an exhaust means also discharges the steam drawn into the cooking cavity, which makes it rather difficult to control the baking operation as desired. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide for a gas cooking oven a damper mechanism that adjusts the opening of the exhaust port as desired in order to permit a more precise control of the baking operation as well as to retain the heat of the oven so as to reduce the fuel consumption.
It is therefore the principal object of this invention to provide improved gas cooking ovens with a view to overcoming the deficiencies of the prior art.
It is another object of this invention to provide a gas cooking oven having a steam generating means integrally formed in the oven body.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a gas cooking oven having a steam generating compartment formed in the top of the oven cavity to convert the water supplied thereto into hot steam with the heat from an upper gas burner located beneath the compartment.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a gas cooking oven with a manually operable damper mechanism that is capable of controlling the amount of steam circulating in the oven cooking cavity.
It is still a further object of this invention to provide an improved gas cooking oven that enables the baking of French bread with a desired glossy appearance and hardness.
It is still a further object of this invention to provide an improved gas burner assembly having a segmented flame transmitting member with a plurality of segments spaced from each other to prevent the warpage of the flame transmitting member.